The Tale of the Birch Bark Dust
by Arkaidy
Summary: Doctor Gary Corrigan kept a bag of birch bark dust in his pocket. Doctor Rodney McKay wanted to know WHY. Crossover


The Tale of the Birch Bark Dust  
By　Vega

This was written for the SGA Flashfic Challenges: Villains, Folklore, Personal Item

Spoilers: Up to and Including 3x15 "The Game"

* * *

Doctor Gary Corrigan (PhD) - all around anthropologist and folklorist and one of the few squishy science types that didn't totally get on Rodney McKay's nerves, mostly because he preferred Alexander Keith's over Molson's and the Leafs over the Sens even though he was from Montreal - kept a bag of _dust_ in his pocket.

Doctor Rodney McKay (PhD; PhD) wanted to know why.

It didn't take long for McKay to decipher that the bag of dust was Corrigan's One Personal Item (capitalized, of course), but _why_ Corrigan kept it in his pocket was another mystery entirely. It also wasn't hard to nip the bag of dust out of Corrigan's pocket when he absently left his jacket hanging on a chair in the mess, scoop some of the dust into an empty juice glass, and drop the glass off in his own lab before thrusting the jacket at Miko and demanding that she go give it back to Corrigan.

The dust turned out to be but ground up, dried out birch bark with an extra mineral element that nothing in the database could identify but McKay strongly suspected of being craft glitter.

That made even less sense to McKay, and as McKay had a very big problem with things he didn't understand (namely, they bugged the hell out of him until he _could_ understand them), he set about trying to devise the best way to force Corrigan's confession.

Also, it bothered that one of his scientists would be stupid enough to bring birch bark as their One Personal Item when they could have brought something like an iPod or an external hard drive filled with music or bootleg Doctor Who, or movies, or, or, you know, _porn_.

The opportunity to grill Corrigan came to McKay a few weeks after the whole mishap with the Ancient version of Civilizations. Doctor Weir, not entirely pleased with either Sheppard or McKay, (nor Zelenka and Lorne, McKay was spitefully pleased to note), had set up a month's worth of visits to backward, backwater little planets where SGA-1 and 2 had to attend a whole bunch of very boring and very annoying native festivals in order to learn to _respect_ said backward, backwater people's ways. (At least, McKay thought that was the lesson they were supposed to learn. You never knew with Weir – maybe she just wanted more little sitting people sculptures for her desk).

The anthropologists, who rarely went anywhere but the mainland, fell all over themselves with geeky, dorky joy and began signing up for missions as fast as they could. McKay did a little bit of computer hackery to make sure that when it came to Corrigan's turn to visit some story-telling celebration on MX-Who-the-Hell-Cares-Because-There-Are-No-ZedPMs, it was with SGA-1.

The festival in question began at exactly noon on a planet with a thankfully twenty hour day, and ended exactly ten hours later at midnight. In the large town centre there were five bonfires as big as a person, and hundreds of little food and goods stalls set up around the perimeter, swathed with coloured fabric and late summer flowers.

The people walked from bonfire to bonfire, taking turns to tell lengthy stories derived from history before wandering off again to find food, drink, and more stories. Corrigan brought several hand-held tape recorders and what felt to McKay and his abused back like literally a ton of batteries and blank cassettes. He distributed one to each member of the team, and told them to wander around and record as many people speaking the stories as possible.

The people on MX-Who-the-Hell-Cares-Because-There-Are-No-ZedPMs had an oral tradition of story telling and refused to create a written language. When asked why – aren't they afraid of their stories passing from the world if they're culled? – they explained that it is the fate of all things to pass from existence and one day their society too, will vanish in it's entirety.

"That's a bit depressing," Sheppard said with a scowl, and went to follow the scent of grilling pork to its source, taking Corrigan –who had been instructed not to wander out of the Colonel's sight - with him.

As such, no writing of any kind was allowed on MX-Who-the-Hell-Cares-Because-There-Are-No-ZedPMs. Hence: tape recorders.

It wasn't for hours, until the sun had set and the night had begun to get a bit nippy and people had started to wander less and huddle and hunker down around the campfires more, that McKay got his chance to ask Corrigan about the bag of dust. McKay plopped himself down on a pillow beside Corrigan. Ronan was on the far side of the other doctor, eating, and Teyla and Sheppard were recording. As the storytelling wound around the circle, Teyla sitting patiently beside a woman on the other side of the fire with her tape recorder aloft, McKay leaned over and said, "Okay, Corrigan – so what's with the birch dust?"

Corrigan, who'd been listening with rapt focus to the woman's tale of a princess from the stars and her demands for a ceremonial vestment made of the fur of an animal resistant to fire, blinked stupidly and turned to look at McKay.

"What?" he said, oh so cleverly.

"The birch bark dust you carry around in the black drawstring bag in your pocket," McKay pointed to the little lump irritably. "_Why?_"

Corrigan's face wasn't near as incapable of hiding his emotions as McKay's, but the progression from confusion, to understanding, to anger, to embarrassment was easy enough to follow.

"It's nothing," he whispered back. "And you had no right to go snooping in my pockets."

McKay scoffed. "Please – you left your jacket in the Mess. I didn't even have to snoop. So what is it? Why do you have it?"

Corrigan sighed, pulled out the bag, ran his fingers along the drawstrings more lovingly than McKay had been expecting. "It's just something from my childhood," he said. "Something to remind me why I'm here, why I'm doing what I'm doing. To remind me on the days where my eyes hurt from reading so much and my fingers ache from typing and my back is burning from being bent over a keyboard that I'm here, and I'm scared shitless that the next time I wake up it'll be to a Wraith sucking out my life, I'm doing this because I love it. Always loved it."

"Loved what?"

Corrigan's face softened into a distant smile. "Telling stories."

McKay shifted on his pillow and frowned. "And a bag of desiccated tree bits does that how, exactly?"

Corrigan's smile sharpened, brought him back to the present and out of whatever memories he'd been watching on the screen of his inner Imax. "When I was younger, my friends and I used to belong to something called The Midnight Society." He opened the bag with deft fingers and McKay noted that in the golden light of the nearby fire, and the something unidentifiable in the dust glittered slightly, like crushed semi-precious stone. "We used to sneak out of our houses at midnight and go into the woods and tell each other stories."

McKay's frown deepened. "Wait, wait, you all snuck out of your houses in the middle of the night to tell ghost stories in the woods outside of Montreal? That's so... dangerous! Dumb! And still doesn't explain the dust!"

Corrigan laughed. "We really didn't think about the danger," he admitted. "The place where we had our campfires was close to my parent's house, too, and I think they knew the whole time what we were doing. And the _dust_--" he said, before McKay had a chance to interrupt him, "Was what we used to call the meeting to order." He took a pinch between his fingers and tossed it at the nearby flames.

They roared and sputtered, whooshing upwards with a crackle before settling back down.

"Huh," McKay said. "Basic chemical reaction."

"Looks like magic, doesn't it?" Corrigan asked with another one of the distant, dopey smiles.

"So you carry around this dust to remind you of your Midnight Convention?"

"Society," Corrigan corrected.

"What's a Midnight Society?" Ronan asked around a mouthful of something that reminded McKay of Candy Apples, his attention drawn by the flare of flame that Corrigan had produced.

Teyla came back around the circle to retake her spot beside McKay, and Sheppard -who had been with her because damned if one of their team was going to walk around alone in the dark on a strange planet- sat beside her.

Corrigan related the whole story again, explaining that the purpose of the Midnight Socniety had been to create and collect stories. This had led Corrigan to Folklorist Anthropology as a field of study, and that had led him to Atlantis. He admitted to having notebooks back home containing every one of the stories he and his childhood friends had created.

It was around this time that SGA-1 and Corrigan realized that the attention of everyone around the campfire was focussed on them and Corrigan's retelling.

"Oh, crap," he said lightly. "They think we're taking our turn."

"Well, aren't we?" Sheppard asked with a sideways grin and a drawl. "C'mere, gimmie your Midnight Dust. I got one."

With a slight frown, Corrigan handed over the small black bag.

"What do I say, exactly?" Sheppard asked, hesitating with a fistful of birch bark.

"Submitted for the Approval of the Midnight Society, I call this story... then you throw the dust--"

"This is so stupid."

"Shut up, Rodney. Then what?"

Corrigan shrugged. "Then you say, 'The Tale of the' and whatever your story is called."

"God, Colonel, what are you, _twelve?_"

"Shut up, Rodney, this is cool."

The residents of MX-Who-the-Hell-Cares-Because-There-Are-No-ZedPMs leaned forward and watched John go through Corrigan's childhood ritual. The fire flared spectacularly, making the natives "oooh" and jerk back with childish delight.

"The Tale of the Midnight Snack."

McKay snorted, "The Turkey Sandwich of Doom!" and got an elbow in the side from Teyla for his trouble.

"This is a true story," Sheppard said, eyes gleaming with narrative glee in the firelight as he leaned forward and raised his voice. Corrigan turned on his tape recorder. "It happened to a friend of a friend of mine. Once, there was this guy named Alex. Alex had a neighbour with a small child, and one night the neighbour had to go into the village to have a meeting with some of the council members and let Alex in charge of the baby."

The natives of MX-Who-the-Hell-Cares-Because-There-Are-No-ZedPMs hummed and nodded, because of course you left a young child in the care of a responsible older one.

"Alex was generally a good kid," Sheppard went on, "With a bright smile and an eagerness to please his neighbour. He always wore a black cap with a brim to keep off the sun, never took it off. Alex was very good with the baby, and made sure that it was fed and clean. When it was time for the baby to go to sleep, the baby fussed and refused to settle if it was alone, so Alex rocked and carried it on his hip, despite the discomfort it caused him. Unsure what to do while he was rocking the baby, Alex began to tidy the house for his neighbour."

Sheppard paused here, his storytelling flare faltering a bit, before swallowing once and pressing on.

"Now, Alex was very young, and innocent for his age, and sometimes the ways of adults aren't fit for children. Alex grew very thirsty, and because it was dark outside and he was loathe to leave the baby alone, he could not go to the well. He began to search the house for something to drink, and found a cask of a white liquid sitting by the fireplace that he had never seen before. It didn't smell strange, so Alex dipped a cup into it and drank. It was the most delicious thing he had ever tasted, and before he knew it, Alex had consumed the whole cask. The drink left him very relaxed, and the world around him spun with colours and music. He was delighted. But it also left him very hungry, so he took his neighbour's pink, soft meat and stuck it with a cooking stick. It made a strange, high pitched sound that made Alex laugh, and he roasted and ate the whole thing before falling into a full and fat sleep. When the neighbour returned in the morning, he woke Alex and asked where his baby had gone."

As if on cue, the whole congregation of people around the fire shuddered.

"Turns out that the irresponsible neighbour had not warned Alex not to drink the white liquid, which was an enzyme that made people go mad. Alex had eaten the baby, and it was all his neighbour's fault. Mad with grief, Alex fled into the woods, never to return. They say that to this day, Alex haunts the forest, his eyes black and mad with anger, and punishes parents who leave dangerous things lying around the house that their children get into by giving them nightmares about eating the flesh of their own kin."

There was a breathy moment of silence, and then the natives of MX-Who-the-Hell-Cares-Because-There-Are-No-ZedPMs began to whistle shrilly, their version of raucous applause. Sheppard grinned and leaned back, accepting the cup of wine that was pressed into his hands to re-moisten his tongue.

McKay felt vaguely sick to his stomach. It was clear who that story was really about – and who Sheppard still thought was to blame.

"Good story, Colonel," Corrigan said appreciatively as the Native's whistling died down. "A version of the urban legend of the strung out babysitter who thought the baby was a turkey."

Sheppard's lazy grin faltered. "You knew?"

Corrigan smirked. "It _is _my job."

"I got one," Ronan rumbled, holding his hand out for the bag, which Sheppard obligingly lobbed over McKay and Corrigan's heads. Ronan snatched it out of the air and opened the drawstring.

"I call this story," and he took great relish in tossing in a handful of the dust, so big that the whole fire wooshed to three times it's height before it settled, "The Tale of the Innocent Egg. Once, long ago, before our father's fathers earned their Manhood Markings, there was a trader of Sateda. He always feared leaving his family behind when he went on trading excursions, terrified that he would return to find his family culled. One day, a man in a cloak and gloves, his face hidden by a scarf and his voice nothing but a rasp, met the trader in a dark pub and asked him what his greatest fear was. When the trader admitted his fear, the man in the cloak produced a shiny blue egg, the size of the trader's head, and told him that the beast that lay within would hatch to become a ferocious creature that would adopt any family it was born into as it's own and protect it until death."

McKay swallowed, pretty sure he'd heard a version of this story before, and tried to rub the goosebumps (which seemed determined to crawl up his arms despite the heat of the bonfire) away with his sweating palms.

"The trader was pleased," Ronan went on, "And brought home the egg. The man's wife and daughters cared for the egg as the man in the cloak had instructed, keeping it submerged at all times in a bowl of warm water. Several weeks later, when the trader was away on another excursion, the egg hatched. The trader's wife and daughters were very excited, and ran over to the bowl to play with their new pet. When the man returned home, he found his family dead around the empty bowl, the five-pointed mark of a feeding on each of their dry chests, and the creature from the egg gone. Too late did the trader realize that he had caused his own greatest fear to come true – his family had been culled, and it was he who had brought home the Wraith."

Sheppard leaned over as the natives whistled and pressed the watery wine that was the storyteller's due into Ronan's hands, and said to McKay, "Remind me not to bring home any blue eggs."

"Yeah, really," McKay whispered back. "No kidding."

"I believe it is my turn," Teyla said, reaching around McKay and Corrigan to take the bag of dust from Ronan, and Corrigan turned his tape recorder in her direction. "Submitted for the Approval of the Midnight Society, I call this story, The Tale of the Wet Woman."

Several natives around the fire 'aaah'ed their approval, and clearly Teyla's tale was one that some people on this planet at least were familiar with.

"In a time long past," Teyla began, sitting up with her legs folded in the position of storytelling of the Athosians, "When the Wraith still slept and the Ancestors were closer to our hearts, there was a village on the planet of Athos. This village was close to the Ring of the Ancestors, closer than we dare build them now for then the Wraith were fewer in number and weakened from their battles with the Ancestors and slept longer. One quiet evening, the Ring of the Ancestors came to life and brought forth a woman in white. She was alone and pale, her eyes wide and with fear and misery, completely drenched in seawater. The people of the village took pity on the woman and brought her into the home of their leader. When they asked her who she was and where she was from, all the woman would say was 'Take me home.' She refused all food and drink, all offers of sleep and warmth, and stood by the fire, shaking and dripping and moaned, 'Take me home.' Their pity growing, the council agreed to help the wet woman return home, and sent her to the Ring of the Ancestors with four stout warriors, each armed with thick _bantos _sticks. Silently, the woman entered the symbols for her home world, a combination that none of the warriors were familiar with nor..."

And here Teyla held up her hand, fingers splayed open, in a gesture that McKay knew that among the Athosians meant '_this is important, pay attention_'.

"Nor could they recall it later. When the warriors followed the wet woman into the Ancestor's Well, they found themselves in wide, dark room made of the metal the Ancestors preferred and golden windows. Beyond the windows the world was dim and green, the sky filled with fish and slanting shafts of light."

"Atlantis?" McKay hissed without thinking, and Teyla shot him an annoyed glance. "Sorry," he said hastily, and Teyla went on.

"Immediately, the woman howled," Teyla said, "And fell to her knees. 'I can't go home,' the wet woman cried. 'I can never go home! It sleeps, it sleeps!' The warriors went to her, tried to pick her up, but their hands passed through her shoulders, for the wet woman had no more solidity than the smoke from a cook fire. Terrified, the warriors tried to find the device that would allow them to waken the Ring of the Ancestors, but it was not anywhere within the room. Howling still, the woman flung a hand at the Ring and it came to life. An invisible force pushed the warriors into the Well so hard that they lost consciousness. When they woke, the warriors found themselves in their own beds back on Athos. They told their story to the council. A traveller, who had come to Athos to trade, stood and cried out, 'That has happened on my world as well! The Wet Woman comes and asks you to take her home, and brings her escort to a strange underwater room. I have heard this story from other traders. When the room remains dark, she wails and exiles her escort from the room forever, wailing, 'Still it sleeps, still it sleeps!' " Teyla slid her eyes along the assembled people, pausing to linger on Doctor Corrigan, who was grinning like a child in a toy store. "This is a warning for all those who listen – help not the Wet Woman, for no one can. If you see her, send her home again alone, because her people are dead, and we cannot wake her City."

More whistling, and McKay scowled when Teyla pressed the bag of dust into his hands so she could accept her wine. "Your turn, I believe, Doctor McKay," she said pleasantly.

"I don't invest in ghost stories," McKay huffed, and crossed his arms over his chest.

"C'mon, Rodney," Sheppard ribbed, poking his shoulder rather harder than was probably necessary. "You have to know some urban legends. What about the one with the hook?"

"Unlike some of us, Colonel," McKay said, "I didn't waste my summers frying my brain in the summer sun at some camp run by hippies and pedophiles. Instead I spent them earning extra credit for my degrees."

Sheppard rolled his eyes. "Right, cause that's a healthy way for a kid to spend their summer vacations."

"Fine," Rodney snapped, snatching the bag from Teyla's hands. "I call this story," and he felt extremely foolish doing it, but tossed a handful of the birch bark dust into the flames anyway, cause it did, okay, look kinda cool. "The Tale of the Lying Farmers. This is a true story," he began, "it happened to a friend of a friend of mine. Once, there were a group of traders from a great city, lead by a brilliant, handsome, genial man that everyone in the city respected and appreciated because he repeatedly saved their lives."

Sheppard snorted so hard his wine came out of his nose, and McKay shot him a dirty look.

"As it happened, this man was so brilliant and so intelligent that when they came to a planet filled with kind and hospitable farmers, the man could immediately see that they were far more technologically advanced than they pretended to be to ward off the Wraith. Angered by the brilliant man's ability to see through their disguise, the cruel leader of the farmers abducted the brilliant man and his friends and forced the brilliant man to use his intelligence to build them a weapon with which to defeat the Wraith once and for all. When the brilliant man refused because he was angry to have been abducted, the evil leader threatened the lives of the brilliant man's friends, sucking out their lives little by little with the hand of a Wraith that his people had cut off and preserved. The brilliant man elicited a promise from the evil leader that he would not harm the brilliant man's friends again as long as the brilliant man created the weapon, and when the weapon was finished, the brilliant man and his friends could return to the city. The evil leader agreed, and for days and nights the brilliant man worked, with no sleep and little food because he couldn't bare it, and thought his heart would fall out of his chest, if he had to watch his friends be tortured again."

Teyla put a gentle, comforting hand on McKay's knee, and beside her, Sheppard was sitting stock still.

"When the weapon was finished, the evil leader took it away and the brilliant man demanded that he and his friends be allowed to return to the city, as promised. After the weapon was deployed, the evil leader sent the brilliant man and his friends back through the Ring of the Ancestors to their shining city. But when they arrived, they were not greeted with the cheers and relief of the city's people, as expected, but with the burnt desolation of the buildings. The weapon the brilliant man had been forced to create had not been used against the Wraith, but against the brilliant man's own people. The brilliant man, despite his intelligence, despite all his hard work and desperation, had not been able to save his people, and instead was the one who had killed them all."

McKay's hands were quite a bit shakier than he would have cared to admit when he accepted his watery wine amid the native's whistling. Teyla's hand squeezed his knee and McKay took the comfort she offered. Sheppard reached around her and patted McKay's shoulder once, and whispered, "It'll never happen. We won't let it."

"Right, yes, of course," McKay snapped irritably, embarrassed by how transparent his story had been, and Teyla and Sheppard removed their hands hastily. "It's just a story."

Doctor Corrigan picked the bag of dust from where McKay and dropped it to the ground, and said, "Well, then, I guess it's my turn." McKay was grateful, silently so, to Corrigan for shifting the attention away from him.

Ronan obligingly held up the tape recorder, but Corrigan shook his head and motioned for Ronan to turn it off. "This is the one story," he said, "that can never be set down."

He shifted forward, towards the fire, the flames glinting off his glasses, and took out a handful of dust. McKay frowned at the bag, thinking that there shouldn't have been as much of the Midnight Dust left as there appeared to be, not after the walloping handful Ronon and Sheppard had both used. But Corrigan had a fistful bigger than physics allowed.

"Submitted for the approval of the Midnight Society," Corrigan said, and his voice was rich and full, solemn and filled with purpose, as if he were reciting the words of a religious rite. "I call this story..." He tossed the dust at the fire and it flared one last time, "The Tale of the Birch Bark Dust."

SGA-1 exchanged long, confused glances among themselves, but remained respectfully and curiously silent.

"This is a true story," Corrigan said, "It happened to a friend of a... it happened to _me_," he corrected himself. "Once, long ago, there was a boy named Gary." He grinned ruefully, shook his head slightly. "Gary was naturally curious, and loved stories about adventure and ghosts and aliens. He loved fantasy and fiction. He loved running through the woods, pretending to be a warrior, or hiding under his covers at night and making up stories about visitors from another world. And one day, all these stories came true."

Corrigan set down the bag of dust beside his folded knee and sat forward slightly, speaking directly to the fire.

"One thing Gary hated," Corrigan went on, "was family vacations. His young brother never stopped complaining the whole time, and his parents always took them to strange cities filled with stranger old things that Gary never cared about unless there was a fantastic story attached. On one such vacation, the year that Gary turned fourteen, his parents took him to a place filled with markets and street-side vendors and small specialty shops. He was given pocket money and a map and told to meet his family back at the place they were staying by sundown. Gary, sullen and unhappy, wandered the market and wished that he had brought a book of stories with him, but his father had not allowed it because he knew Gary would only stay inside and read all day. Angry and bitter, Gary walked the streets with his eyes on his shoes, not watching where he was going, until he found himself in an alley that ended in a shop with a sign above the door that said 'Sardo's Magic Mansion.' As much as Gary loved stories of magic and fantasy, Gary knew that there was no such thing as magic, truly, so even more angry, he turned away."

Here Corrigan paused to run his fingers absently over the black bag on the ground, before taking a deep, puffing breath, and continued.

"But as Gary turned away, a man called from the door of the shop, 'Hey, you! Come inside,' and intrigued, Gary went. The man introduced himself as 'Sardo, no _mister,_ accent on the _doh_,' and told Gary that he was an Ancestor. 'Whose ancestor?' Gary asked, and Sardo said, 'Everybody's.' Gary thought that the man was very odd and decided that it was time for him to leave, but the man picked up a heavy silver object from the shelf and handed it to Gary. The moment Gary touched it, it lit up, glowing green and blue, playing the most beautiful music Gary had ever heard. 'I thought so,' Sardo said, and plucked the object from Gary's hands and put it back on the shelf. 'I have something for you,' Sardo said, 'Follow me.' Gary, intrigued now by the glowing music box, followed Sardo into a room behind the counter. Sardo rummaged among chests and trunks of strange things – rings and mummified hands and a carpet that hovered in the air - and finally emerged with a little black bag. The bag was filled with dust, and Sardo said to Gary, 'This is for you. It is a gift from the Ancestors – this bag will never empty. No matter how much you take from it, it will always be full.' "

McKay narrowed his eye sat the bag beside Corrigan's knee and sat on his hands to repress the urge to reach out and snatch it up and turn it upside down.

" 'What will I do with a never-ending bag of dust?' Gary asked, wrinkling his nose at the bag," Corrigan said. "Sardo laughed. 'Tell stories,' Sardo said. 'This is Magic Dust. This dust has the power to improve the memory of the people who inhale its fumes. Burn it, a handful at a time, and the smoke that rises from the fire will seep into the minds of those present. It will make their memories stronger, so they will remember any tale told to them while breathing in the fumes. Use this dust to help you remember the stories you are told, then write them down, Gary Corrigan. If you do, if you gather them and understand them and learn from them, then at the time of your death, you will be taken Up to join the other Ancestors and live among them forever.' "

Corrigan scratched the back of an ear, somewhat shamefaced.

" 'How did you know my name?' Gary asked, looking up from the bag of dust, but Sardo, and the whole shop were gone, and Gary was standing alone with the bag in an empty, dead-end alley way. Terrified, Gary ran back to the hotel. He tried to dump out the bag of dust, but no matter how long he held it upside down over the trash can, the bag never emptied. It took many many months, and many many dreams of Sardo's magic shop and the wonderful, belonging feel of the magical music box that had just _fit _in Gary's hand for Gary to gather his courage and try to burn the dust. When he did, he realized that Sardo had been telling the truth, that the smoke from the dust gave Gary the ability to remember every story he was told. He tried to use it to help him remember his maths homework and his science equations, but the dust only ever worked on stories. Gary began to collect as many as he could, writing them all down in notebooks so that when he died, every story he ever learned would not die with him. Gary made it his personal mission to hear every story on his world, in the hopes that one day, Sardo and the other Ancestors would welcome Gary among them and he could spend the rest of eternity with the Ancestors, telling them the great stories of the galaxy."

The whistling that erupted was shriller and more enthusiastic than what was offered for any other story that night, and Corrigan ducked his head, his cheeks flaming red.

"Is that true?" McKay hissed into his ear. "There's an Ancient on Earth? And he promised you'd Ascend? Why didn't you _say _something? Is this why you wrangled yourself onto the Expedition?"

Corrigan smiled that distant, dopey smile again, holding his bag of dust against his chest protectively, as if it were a sleepy kitten, and said, "Don't be silly, Doctor McKay. It's just a story."

* * *

_"Stargate: Atlantis" and all related concepts and characters are copyright MGM Studios; "Are You Afraid Of The Dark?" and all related concepts and characters are copyright Nickelodean, Cinar, and YTV. This is a work of fiction, created for entertainment purposes only, and no profit is being derived nor any copyright infringement intended._


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